After watching The Normal Heart last night and seeing how hard it was back in the 1980’s to get anyone with a voice and power to support anything AIDS related, it’s interesting to see how so much has changed. A lot of this has to do with celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor who was one of the first to speak up about AIDS, and for a while the only one. Since then support has continued, with celebrities like Justin Beiber who recently donated $545,000 for AIDS research.

Organizers were floored by the offer and double-checked with Bieber to make sure he was serious about the donation, which he confirmed he was. However Bieber couldn’t wait to take part in a lavish banquet that was part of the event and reportedly ordered a meal off the hotel’s kids menu before the banquet was served.

You can read more here, and please refrain from any negative Justin Beiber comments. Unless, of course, you plan to match Beiber’s donation with either your time or money.

Getting Over a Breakup

I have a few friends getting over breakups right now and I thought I’d post about these five tips that might help. In some cases it’s not the first breakup, but to be honest I’m not sure a first, second, or whatever the number is can be any better or worse. If anything, I think breakups are harder as we get older.

In any event, here’s one of the five tips:

• Cry Baby, Cry! If you learned nothing else from breaking free from the closet, remember that bottled up emotions and pent up anxiety didn’t make you gay; it only prevented you from being your true gay self. This is also true for pretending that your first same-sex breakup doesn’t suck. Who are you kidding and pretending to be? That didn’t work when you were in the closet so why should it work now that you’re learning the ins and outs of LGBT relationships? Let those tears and emotions flow. Without the release of emotions, you’ll walk into another damn closet with a whole new set of dark corners and hidden fears that will not serve you well. A whole string of guys broke my heart; the hot Brit, the suave Hollywood film guy and a slew of formerly straight divorced dads-with kids (in other words, men just like me). But every tear I shed made me stronger and allowed me to love with self-respect. I come first, they come second.

My only comment is that you should get it all out in the beginning. But don’t keep harping about it forever. I had one friend who broke up with his partner of five years and we all felt terrible for him and we supported him every way we could. But after a year or two he didn’t stop talking about it, complaining about it, and obsessing about it. It reached a point where he was difficult to be around. Don’t become the person who never stops talking about his or her ex. Move forward.

The main reason I’m posting about this is because part of the reason why young Republicans are at odds with the GOP is gay marriage and other LGBTI issues. If I understand this correctly, the young Republicans (and gay Republicans) are fiscally conservative but socially liberal. But don’t quote me on that. A lot of this is still evolving and no one is sure what to think at this point.

The group illustrates a growing generational divide in the GOP as younger Republicans increasingly break rank from the establishment on social issues. In Alabama, a college Republican group leader was nearly kicked out of the party for supporting gay marriage. The successful push to legalize gay marriage in Minnesota was backed by several prominent younger Republicans. And in Colorado, the spokesman for a group that pushed to legalize marijuana was a Republican activist. Perhaps only in opposing abortion are most young Republicans nationally as conservative socially as older members.“We’ve grown up in a time where everything’s much more open. We want to talk about more things,” Tampa Bay Young Republicans president Anibal Cabrera said. “We’re willing to listen to the other point of view. We’re willing to have an opposite opinion.”You can read it in full here. The article goes on to mention how Republicans run the risk of losing these younger people if they don’t begin to change their platform. It’s an interesting article, especially if you’ve always believed in the strong political divide between Democrats and Republicans. I think most of us always think of it as more black white. Evidently, there are a lot of gray areas popping up for reasons I’m not sure I fully understand yet.

After watching The Normal Heart last night and seeing how hard it was back in the 1980’s to get anyone with a voice and power to support anything AIDS related, it’s interesting to see how so much has changed. A lot of this has to do with celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor who was one of the first to speak up about AIDS, and for a while the only one. Since then support has continued, with celebrities like Justin Beiber who recently donated $545,000 for AIDS research.

Organizers were floored by the offer and double-checked with Bieber to make sure he was serious about the donation, which he confirmed he was. However Bieber couldn’t wait to take part in a lavish banquet that was part of the event and reportedly ordered a meal off the hotel’s kids menu before the banquet was served.

You can read more here, and please refrain from any negative Justin Beiber comments. Unless, of course, you plan to match Beiber’s donation with either your time or money.

Getting Over a Breakup

I have a few friends getting over breakups right now and I thought I’d post about these five tips that might help. In some cases it’s not the first breakup, but to be honest I’m not sure a first, second, or whatever the number is can be any better or worse. If anything, I think breakups are harder as we get older.

In any event, here’s one of the five tips:

• Cry Baby, Cry! If you learned nothing else from breaking free from the closet, remember that bottled up emotions and pent up anxiety didn’t make you gay; it only prevented you from being your true gay self. This is also true for pretending that your first same-sex breakup doesn’t suck. Who are you kidding and pretending to be? That didn’t work when you were in the closet so why should it work now that you’re learning the ins and outs of LGBT relationships? Let those tears and emotions flow. Without the release of emotions, you’ll walk into another damn closet with a whole new set of dark corners and hidden fears that will not serve you well. A whole string of guys broke my heart; the hot Brit, the suave Hollywood film guy and a slew of formerly straight divorced dads-with kids (in other words, men just like me). But every tear I shed made me stronger and allowed me to love with self-respect. I come first, they come second.

My only comment is that you should get it all out in the beginning. But don’t keep harping about it forever. I had one friend who broke up with his partner of five years and we all felt terrible for him and we supported him every way we could. But after a year or two he didn’t stop talking about it, complaining about it, and obsessing about it. It reached a point where he was difficult to be around. Don’t become the person who never stops talking about his or her ex. Move forward.

The main reason I’m posting about this is because part of the reason why young Republicans are at odds with the GOP is gay marriage and other LGBTI issues. If I understand this correctly, the young Republicans (and gay Republicans) are fiscally conservative but socially liberal. But don’t quote me on that. A lot of this is still evolving and no one is sure what to think at this point.

The group illustrates a growing generational divide in the GOP as younger Republicans increasingly break rank from the establishment on social issues. In Alabama, a college Republican group leader was nearly kicked out of the party for supporting gay marriage. The successful push to legalize gay marriage in Minnesota was backed by several prominent younger Republicans. And in Colorado, the spokesman for a group that pushed to legalize marijuana was a Republican activist. Perhaps only in opposing abortion are most young Republicans nationally as conservative socially as older members.“We’ve grown up in a time where everything’s much more open. We want to talk about more things,” Tampa Bay Young Republicans president Anibal Cabrera said. “We’re willing to listen to the other point of view. We’re willing to have an opposite opinion.”You can read it in full here. The article goes on to mention how Republicans run the risk of losing these younger people if they don’t begin to change their platform. It’s an interesting article, especially if you’ve always believed in the strong political divide between Democrats and Republicans. I think most of us always think of it as more black white. Evidently, there are a lot of gray areas popping up for reasons I’m not sure I fully understand yet.

Author of over 100 published LGBT romance novels and stories, including AN OFFICER AND HIS GENTLEMAN and best selling VIRGIN BILLIONAIRE SERIES. Hates beets.
New Hope, PA Palm Springs, CA
ryan-field.blogspot.com